Hauser & Wirth Now Represents the Estate of Günther Förg

Hauser & Wirth gallery, which has spaces in New York, Los Angeles, London, Hong Kong, Zurich, and Somerset, England, now represents the estate of Günther Förg, the painter who was known best for his sly revisions of modernist abstraction. The news comes shortly after the opening of a Förg retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam that travels next to the Dallas Museum of Art. The first Förg show at Hauser & Wirth is currently planned for one of its American galleries in spring 2019.

Förg, who died in 2013, is considered one of the more important artists to emerge from the postwar German art scene. His most famous works take the form of brightly colored canvases that look, at first glance, like paintings by Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, and the like. But in their use of industrial materials, such as lead and bronze, the paintings suggest that these monochromes could be easily manufactured. Förg also produced photographs that likewise commented on the mass-produced quality of modernist structures.

Previously, Förg’s work was shown by Greene Naftali gallery in New York; Almine Rech Gallery in New York, London, Paris, and Brussels; Galerie Lelong’s Paris gallery; and Galerie Max Hetzler in Berlin. A release noted that Hauser & Wirth now “exclusively” represents Förg’s estate, which is managed by the artist’s widow, Ika Huber. The gallery plans to help support new research related to the artist’s work and the publication of a catalogue raisonné.

“A critical component of our gallery’s mission is to serve as custodians of artists’ estates and stewards of their ideas and contributions,” Iwan Wirth, the president of Hauser & Wirth, said in a statement. “We are particularly excited to work on furthering Förg’s reputation in Asia and the United States, and to develop internationally the great passion for the artist’s work that exists in his homeland of Germany.”